26

When I was in primary school, the English teachers would have us dedicate one exercise book as our journal. Some weeks, they would assign journal writing as our homework. The topic could be something they set, or it could be free writing and we could write about anything we wanted.

I loved it when English homework was journal writing. To me, it was so much more fun than worksheets. I would eagerly fill up pages and pages of the exercise book with each journal entry, to the point where I sometimes needed to start another volume in a new exercise book after running out of space in the first one.

Of course, for primary school kids, the journal topics would be fairly simple, like "What I did over the weekend." But I would captivate my teachers' attention even with such a mundane subject, and they always wrote very positive comments on the pages of my exercise books, which made me really happy.

So I guess writing has always been a thing in my life. Then I went and made it my profession, which in some sense was a good decision because why not make money out of something I'm good at and enjoy doing... But in other ways it kind of killed the joy in it.

My job as an internal communications professional does involve some writing, but not as much as, say, being a journalist. Comms involves so much more planning and project management than they tell you in school, and the fun content creation bits are quite rare. So my writing skills are getting a little rusty. And the type of content we generate most of the time, to put it bluntly, is propaganda. It's not fun to create and it's not fun to consume. I question my purpose in life when I don't get a positive reaction from my readers. I want my writing to entertain, to amuse, to provoke thought. Otherwise I have wasted my time.

So to try to build a bulwark against this creeping issue before it becomes a bigger problem and I totally lose my writing mojo, like so many other communications professionals do when they stay too long in the field, I decided to take some time out this week, during one of my rare weeks away from work, to update this blog with some (hopefully) good content.

To hark back to my primary school journaling days, the topic will be really simple: What I did during my week off.

Enjoy!

23 October 2023: Mandai Bird Paradise

I always take a one-week vacation from work around the 21st of October, which is my birthday. For my 26th birthday this year, I decided to check out the Mandai Bird Paradise for the first time. I no longer do birthday dinners and those kinds of things that normal people do on their birthdays, since I no longer take food orally. I'm all about non-culinary experiences now. Last year I stayed two nights in the Marina Bay Sands hotel to celebrate my 25th!

This year, my actual birthday was on a Saturday, so I waited for the Monday to go to the Bird Paradise so that I wouldn't have to contend with the weekend crowd.

The park was still pretty crowded though, especially with people from India. There were not many other Singaporeans there aside from a school excursion group from Pathlight and a gaggle of senior citizens from some social welfare organisation.

In terms of layout, Bird Paradise consists of a series of ten zones which you can pass through linearly, making a loop around the perimeter of the attraction as you go. With the exception of the first two zones, Winged Sanctuary and Penguin Cove, all zones are giant aviaries: essentially they are like little clumps of standalone forests where the birds are all flying around freely, with a huge net covering the entire place so that the birds are contained inside...

... And predators are kept outside, as I discovered at the Crimson Wetlands zone. This zone is, in my opinion, the most beautiful because it is spacious and open, being less forested than the other aviaries. The birds there, like flamingos and macaws, are also bigger and much easier to see. The trouble with some of the other aviaries is that they are very well-vegetated and the birds are pretty small and flighty, so it's rather hit-or-miss if you get to see anything unless you're really patient and willing to stand there searching for a long time.

While I was at the Crimson Wetlands, there was suddenly a huge commotion as nearly the whole population of birds in the aviary, except for the biggest ones like the flamingos, started shrieking at the top of their lungs and flying rapidly in circles like a whirlwind! It was an amazing sight to behold as hundreds of birds swooped above me, twittering furiously. As I looked up at them, I spotted the reason for their mass hysteria. High above the aviary, inscribing lazy circles through the clouds, was a pair of hawks. They were probably a mating pair from the nearby Seletar reservoir hunting for food. Obviously, in the wild, some of the small birds in the Bird Paradise would be fair game for birds of prey like hawks, so it's understandable that they would panic when hawks show up in the neighbourhood. Their bird brains can't comprehend the concept that the nets keep the hawks out, after all.

Speaking of bird brains, there was a psycho bird at the Winged Sanctuary. The Winged Sanctuary is not an aviary but a series of big mesh cages housing rare birds. One of the hornbills there was behaving strangely: it kept honking loudly and rhythmically and banging its head against the metal door at the back of the cage. I think it needs an intervention.

That hornbill was, unfortunately, not the only sick bird I spotted at the park. One of the penguins at the Penguin Cove looked ill too. Its protective coat was discoloured and seemed to have eroded away. The poor little thing was shivering and it refused to swim with its friends.

I spent a long time at the Penguin Cove, visiting at the start as well as the end of my journey around the park. Its convenient location near the entrance makes it possible to do this. It is clearly the most popular zone and is always packed. This is because penguins are the superior race in all of birdkind. The air-conditioning is a big plus too.

The design of the Penguin Cove could do with a few tweaks though. Currently, there are two levels where you can observe the penguins from. The Beach level has a big glass window which looks onto the land portion of the penguins' habitat. This is the more important part of the habitat because many of the penguins are lazy and spend the whole time just standing around doing nothing. So to see them, you need to be on this level. The Underwater level, as the name suggests, shows the underwater view of the habitat. I was lucky enough to catch the penguins' morning feeding time, so I got to see the penguins diving deep to retrieve the dead capelins that the keepers dumped into the water. But otherwise, generally you don't see any penguins from this level.

For some strange reason, they decided to put a buffet restaurant on the Underwater level, with the unique proposition that you can dine while enjoying the view of penguins swimming. This clearly doesn't happen in real life because the penguins seldom go down there, so you're in effect dining while enjoying the view of empty water columns. I would get rid of this bootleg Ocean Restaurant because it is a waste of budget and space. I would relocate the merchandise shop and café from where they now are on the Beach level to the Underwater level, because the Underwater level is an entry and exit point to the building and it makes sense to catch people there and ask them to spend money. In the space freed up on the Beach level, I would build a dais, similar to the one at the manatee tank at the River Wonders. People will be able to mount the dais via ramps at the side to get an elevated view of the penguins standing on the land. This is useful because the habitat is quite big and the parts at the back are difficult for children and people in a seated position to see from the floor. Having a raised platform would afford a much better view.

Mandai Bird Paradise: A good experience

Sick birds and interior design inadequacies notwithstanding, I would recommend visiting the Bird Paradise at least once. It's a good experience overall, with each aviary separated from the next by an enclosed and air-conditioned rest area so you can seek shelter if the elements get too overwhelming. There are abundant food and beverage options at both the entrance as well as the midpoint of the park where the Crimson Wetlands is. I distinctly remember a very strong chicken rice garlic chilli smell from the food court just after it. And I enjoyed my favourite ice lemon tea from the Han's Union just outside the park. If you patronise the A&W next door, see if the menu board still contains the typo I spotted: they meant to write "irresistible" but it came out as "irrestible" instead.

The free-ranging birds make for some interesting encounters too, as the more inquisitive ones may even land on you and try to steal your stuff. Here's a bird pecking at my mother.

I'm not generally a fan of birds but I enjoyed my time at the Mandai Bird Paradise. But at $42 a ticket, I feel that the cost is quite a deterrent to repeat visits for all but avid bird enthusiasts. I will, however, willingly go back if I could pay half price for a ticket that only allows entry to the Penguin Cove.

The power of penguin cuteness will compel you to spend money. Resistance is futile.

See that pillow on my chest? It's a magic pillow. Turn it inside-out and it transforms into...

A soft toy!

24 October 2023: Dinner at Putien Raffles City with friends

I don't do a lot of social stuff. Hanging out with friends is not a simple task for me, as it involves logistics to get me to and from the hangout venue safely, and a lot of planning and coordinating of schedules with my caregivers, who are my parents. There's also not a lot of realistic options in terms of hangout activities: for instance, the typical young person would go clubbing with their friends, but that wouldn't turn out well if I tried it.

There's also a very big energy cost I have to pay when going out with friends. As an introvert, and someone who doesn't socialise much, there is a mental cost of course, but this is compounded by the physical effort required to be outside the safe environs of my home, where the furniture is comfortable and the surroundings are peaceful and quiet.

But I'm still a human being, and I need social contact to stay psychologically well. So when I have some time off from work, I make an effort to arrange meetups with friends. That way, I have enough energy to spare as I saved some by not working, and I have days free after the meetup to restore my energy.

I caught up with my friends JC and BL on Tuesday night at the Putien restaurant in Raffles City. My parents wanted to go to the Clove restaurant at the hotel next door to use up some vouchers they had, and my friends were coming from work in the city centre, so it worked out well.

JC is a friend I made at work four years ago, and in the company I work at, that's nearly a lifetime. As BL always says, JC and I have been around for very long. We've lost many friends to other companies along the way, so I'm really happy that she's still around, and similarly, she keeps teasingly warning me not to resign. When I was an intern in human resources, she was my guardian. Now, even though I'm a battle-tested regular staff in my own right, I still find comfort in the stability she brings, even though I've since established myself in the communications department and don't overlap much with her in terms of responsibilities.

BL is a new friend who joined JC's department just over a year ago. We crossed paths because my internal communications role puts me in close contact with various parts of human resources, as I help them to announce their policies and initiatives to the employees. She has since made her next career move, but we promised to keep up our friendship.

Many career advisors on Tiktok say things like "Never trust HR" and things like that, but my list of friends that I made at work is dominated by HR colleagues. My view is that you have to look at your HR colleagues with very open and honest eyes, and not be prejudiced against them just because of stereotypes or a perception that they are there to protect the company by hurting you. There are some really good ones like BL and JC who make it their mission to find win-win solutions, and they work really hard at it. And at the end of the day, HR colleagues are flesh-and-blood employees like the rest of us, trying to survive and make an honest living. I am proud of my HR friends!

Time

The get-together with JC and BL also made me reflect on the passage of time, and how we use it. BL may only have been with the company for just over a year, but she and JC grew so close that they now go on overseas holidays together. They also share a very cute dynamic, as exemplified by the following conversation at the restaurant while ordering a vegetable dish.

BL: *speaks to waitress in Mandarin*
JC: What vegetable did she say that is?
BL: Oh, this is a green vegetable.
JC: No shit bro, most vegetables are green.

Or this one where they were telling me about their recent trip to Vietnam when it flooded.

BL: *pointing at JC* She made us walk in mud!
JC: It wasn't mud, it was just rain water.
BL: Just water? You drink and show me lah!

BL also didn't have a lot of joint projects with me, but our brief interactions over the course of the year added up and made us become friends instead of just coworkers. When she resigned, a lot of people across the company, besides myself, were very sad.

Thinking about her impact, I realised that one year is a long time, but it is also a short time. We can use it for so much good, but we can also do the opposite. Broadly speaking, I can categorise new coworkers into three groups. In their first year, they can:

1. Leave a deep and positive impact on their colleagues, and have many good relationships within and beyond their department;
2. Leave a deep and negative impact on their colleagues, sowing a trail of confusion, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness in their wake; or
3. Make people wonder what they were doing during the year, because they didn't seem to have made any impact at all.

BL, needless to say, is in the first category. I can only hope I have more colleagues like that in the future.

Keep Calm and Battle On!

I was recently reminded of this blog when I made a new friend, let's call her M, at work, and showed it to her so she could get to know me better.

My last post was over a year ago. I felt I really should update it, give it some love and a fresh lick of paint.

Besides, it's been a while since I've written anything for my own enjoyment. Writing is now my job, but I want to rediscover the joys of doing it for its own sake as well.

So when inspiration struck in the form of a sudden wave of nostalgia brought about by experiencing an old childhood game in a totally new way, I decided I'd take advantage of this four-day extended weekend to pump out a new post.

Let's start from the very beginning, shall we?

The light of mana

A ball of yellow flame burst from the adventurer's hand, striking the mer-monster square in the chest.

The mer-monster, which had the tail of a fish but a hideous-looking body, staggered in pain, then retaliated, blasting the adventurer with a water spell.

The adventurer recovered and readied another ball of yellow in his hand.

"No no no, why you keep using 'Light of Mana'? This monster is weak to energy, so you should use energy spells, not light!"

A voice cuts in. A hand grabs the cursor and positions it over the "monster attributes" section of the screen, causing a popup to appear.

It displayed a dizzying array of numbers.

That was the moment I fell head-over-heels in love with computer games, especially those involving the Skinner box design philosophy of "big numbers getting bigger", with a bit of RNG thrown in for good measure.

Geeky pastime

The owner of the voice, and the hand, was my classmate.

Now, please remember that this was a long time ago. We were in Primary 3, and it was a post-exam period so we were all left to our own devices in the school's computer lab. But I'm pretty sure his name was Isaac, and back then he lived in Jalan Tiga.

He was a short, chubby boy with big, round, black-framed glasses. Exactly the sort of quiet, geeky kid who would be suffering wedgies every day at the hands of the jocks if we had been in a typical American school. Fortunately, this is the nerd capital of the world, Singapore.

We were sharing one of the school computers. He had offered to show me a computer game. I had not played computer games before that day, because I was quite deprived of life beyond academics.

"It's called BattleOn," he told me breathlessly, his eyes twinkling with excitement.

He logged into his account and showed me the basics. Click "Attack" to attack with your primary weapon, click "Spells" to choose a magical attack, click "Weapons", "Shields", "Armor", and "Pets" to change your loadout. Seemed simple enough.

I played on his account for a while, during which he taught me more about the game mechanics, such as why it's not a good strategy to spam 'Light of Mana', which was the spell he had used when demonstrating the game to me, against every monster.

Basically, most monsters conform to a certain element, which makes them weak to the opposing element. So for example, the mer-monster, whose exact name escapes me, I was fighting was a water-based creature, so its weakness was energy.

Similarly, fire creatures are weak to ice, darkness creatures are weak to light, and so on. You should tailor your attacks to exploit your opponent's weaknesses.

Eventually, Isaac popped the question.

"Do you want your own account?"

I answered yes. Less than ten minutes later, he had me all set up.

Jonathan798 was good to go.

The marijuana of computer games

I like to say that for '90s kids, BattleOn was the "gateway drug" for those of us who would eventually become hooked on computer games.

It was simple enough for our tiny, kiddy brains to handle, yet complex enough to introduce us to fundamental game mechanics and concepts such as the rock-paper-scissors approach that the combat systems of most games essentially boil down to.

And it had that potent combination of monster variety, quests and lore, and "just one more level before bed".

I've always had an addictive personality, so that "just one more level before bed" effect was very strong on me.

As I tend to do, I flung myself headlong into the game, grinding the levels day after day.

Every recess time, I would proudly report back to Isaac what level I had achieved the night before.

I think I got a bit tiresome, because one day he got a bit irritated and said: "This is not a competition."

Oops.

Rose-tinted nostalgia

I eventually graduated to bigger games like RuneScape, but I always kept Jonathan798. Every couple of years, I would revisit him and play with him again for a while.

The feeling of familiarity, of homecoming, of simpler times, never fails to bring a smile to my face.

When work stress got to me a couple of weeks ago, I took Jonathan798 out for a spin again.

I posted about it on social media. M's husband saw my post, and immediately recognised the game, declaring it a "legendary game". Damn right it is!

He said that when he was a kid, he had a Guardian account with the Blade of Awe!

WTF... Jonathan798 was about 15 years old, and level 80+, but he was not a Guardian, nor did he have the Blade of Awe.

I had wasted hours as a kid, jostling with the other free players around the world for the very limited 8,000 server places available to us.

I remember, with a tinge of disgust, repeatedly being greeted with the all-too-familiar message that the server was full, and if I really wanted to play, I should become a Guardian so I wouldn't have to queue like a poor person.

I felt like such a pleb. The situation was unacceptable. How would I remedy this?

A quick Google search later, I had my answer. A one-off payment of US$19.95 would make me a Guardian, while a one-off payment of US$24.95 would make me a Guardian with X-Boost, which is essentially a bunch of cool upgrades over the regular Guardian account type.

I thought about the fact that RuneScape is costing me just under a hundred bucks a year on a recurring membership. BattleOn's Guardianship is a permanent unlock for a single payment, and the price is very low by today's industry standards.

My mind was made up. "Go big or go home," I said to myself as I bought the higher tier. "Look who's back, to buy the thing he couldn't afford as a kid."

Breathing new life into an old hobby

First order of business: acquire the Blade of Awe. It's essentially a very powerful weapon only available to Guardians.

To get it, you have to collect five pieces of the weapon. These will spawn in rare treasure chests which randomly appear as you play.

Once you have all five weapon components, bring them to Valencia, a rare item hunter in the main city, who will assemble them for you into the complete sword.

I was expecting a long, RNG-based grind to find and collect all five pieces, but when I spoke to Valencia, she immediately said I had everything I needed and she promptly made and presented me with the Blade of Awe!

Apparently, free players are able to find the weapon pieces, just that they can't put them together, and at some point over the last 15 years, I had successfully collected all five of them.

Presenting... the Blade of Awe!

It's a very pog weapon. For me, regular attacks hit in the high two-digits or low three-digits, and it has random special attacks which can hit in the high three-digits. It also grows stronger with the player's level, and I've seen veteran players hitting thousands of damage with it!

Of course, the Blade of Awe is not the only thing Guardianship has to offer. There are lots of new classes of combat to train in, and I can also go further in depth into the older classes that were available in free-to-play on a restricted basis, now that I'm no longer subject to those limitations.

My X-Boost also netted me extra Z-Tokens, the game's premium MTX currency. So I bought a cottage.

Apparently the cottage comes with several plots of real estate for me to build stuff on for resource gathering. I'm still figuring out this part.

And of course, I now have unfettered access to every single item, quest, and location in the entire game.

Jonathan798, my trusty BattleOn account that Isaac helped me create when I was nine years old, is reborn.

A new adventure is just beginning!

A new chapter

 On 5 April 2021, I will begin the next, and quite possibly the last, phase of my life.

I will be joining GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, as an associate in the communications department.

This job opportunity arose because I did well during my internship there in 2019, and the company offered me a full-time conversion after I had graduated.

It's a good place to work, the pay is fair, and there are nice employee benefits. Overall, I feel extremely fortunate to have landed such a plum posting. Many other people, especially those who have similarly severe medical problems as I do, aren't so lucky.

So barring any major catastrophes, such as company upheaval or if they decide to can me for some reason, I intend to stay in this position for as long as my body can hold up to the rigors of a 9-5 (technically 8:30-6) workday.

I'm under no illusions and I want to make it very clear: this is in all likelihood going to be my first and last job. I'm probably going to die in it.

With every year that passes, I get sicker and weaker. It's a classic "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" situation. Mentally and personality-wise, I've made so much progress over the past five years. It's just a shame that physically, I'm going in the opposite direction.

But while I'm still in decent working order, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be the consummate professional. I'll get the work assigned to me done to a high standard and in a timely manner. People will come to know me as the reliable one, the go-to guy if you need something to get done. That's always been my strength and what I enjoy: getting shit done.

Here's what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to go all-out in climbing the corporate ladder. I'm not going to be one of those types who does everything possible to stand out and be noticed so that they have better promotion prospects. I'm not going to burn myself out trying to please everybody and be all things to all men. I have boundaries, and I will guard them. I'm done pandering to others. It's time to live for myself.

As they say, I'm here for a good time, not for a long time. Living on borrowed time as I have been for the past 21 years has a way of putting into perspective what's really important in life: personal relationships, satisfaction with your daily life, and doing fun stuff while you still have the ability to do so.

There's no point cutting out the time you spend with people who make you happy, turning your life into a grind, and sucking every last bit of joy out of your existence, just to get a better-sounding title and an extra couple of hundred dollars.

My plan is simple. Do my job, and do my very best at it. No less, but no more either.

That way, they can't fire me, because I'm doing my job well. But I also protect myself, and can live out the rest of my days happily.

Note: Every time I write something brutally candid like this, I feel the need to clarify in case someone panics and starts calling IMH on me. No, I don't intend to off myself. I'm just stating the facts: I feel terrible in terms of my health these days and very likely won't survive long enough for things like career-building to matter. Let me put it this way: when the inevitable medical catastrophe happens to me, I'm not going to be one of those people who fights for their life. I'll just give in and let whatever happens happen. In my case, living a long life is literally the worst thing that could happen to me, because it would condemn me to many more years of watching myself slowly die until I become nothing more than a slightly intelligent vegetable. Besides, my parents are getting old and me being around when they're really elderly or worse, dead, will be an utter disaster for all of us. No thanks, I'd rather quit while I'm ahead and go out with the remains of my dignity intact, and have my parents still hale and hearty enough to make sure my wishes are properly seen to and then they can go off and do fun stuff for the remainder of their lives. But while I'm still here, though, my number one priority is safeguarding my own happiness. That's all there is to it. And nobody is going to take that from me.

Jonathan's Year in Review 2020

I was shocked to discover recently that the decade is ending on 31 December 2020. I had been under the impression that it had ended last year, because you count from 2010 to 2019, then 2020 to 2029, and so on right? But apparently not. Between mirthful snorts of laughter at my ignorance, my father explained it to me like this: There was no year 0. The first year was 1. So the decades are counted as follows: 1 to 10, 11 to 20, ... 2011 to 2020, 2021 to 2030, and so on.

I had never felt more stupid in my life. My whole life has been a fucking lie!

Anyway, since this year is such a milestone being the end of a decade and all, I thought I should take a moment (actually several thousand moments, because this whopper of a post is going to take me quite a while to write) to look back on the year and the decade as a whole, and reflect on all that's happened.

Decade in review: 2011 to 2020

This section won't be as long as you might expect. I mean, a lot of things happen in a 10-year period, but I won't be cramming the entire decade's worth of stuff in here. And it's not for editorial reasons either. No, the reason is much more straightforward: I don't remember.

Indeed, I'm getting on in age, and feeling the effects of every single day of wear and tear on my body, mind, and spirit. So unfortunately, I do get senior moments increasingly often, including forgetfulness and the dreaded tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon where I want to say a particular word but it remains just beyond reach of my consciousness and I end up stuttering like an idiot for a few seconds until my brain kicks back into gear and catches up. A neurological disorder like spinal muscular atrophy affects only my physical health directly; that much is true. In fact, this decade has been marked by a noticeable decline in my condition and I give myself at best even odds of making it through the next decade alive and an almost 0% chance of making it to the end of the one after. But even though the mental and intellectual parts of me are not affected by the disease, when the body has to commit almost all of its resources to keeping itself running, the mind and spirit do suffer from deprivation and, as a result, they do deteriorate as well.

That's not to say I'm a dullard. I know I'm not. I'm damn good at what I do, and I have only gotten smarter over the course of the decade. A lot of this has to do with my tertiary education.

First, I took the unorthodox step of opting for a polytechnic diploma course rather than following the traditional junior college route after finishing secondary school. (For my overseas readers: Polytechnic is a bit like what the Americans call "community college". It focuses more on knowledge that is relevant to the real world. Junior college is a continuation of the traditional school system where students learn the standard subjects like calculus, chemistry, literature, and so on.)

Polytechnic was great. I studied psychology, and although many of the theories and research techniques I had to memorise have since faded into the fog of history, the important principles remain and have influenced the way I navigate social relations and the big, bad world out there. It matured me as a person, turning me from a book-smart teen who was utterly lost when asked to do anything that didn't involve examination papers into someone a little more shrewd, streetwise, and capable.

I also learned other useful skills like Microsoft Office, which is wonderful because I don't know how I would have learned it otherwise. Knowing how to use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel is a basic requirement for all office jobs, so I'm glad I had good instruction in them. It certainly saved me a lot of bungling around when I went for my internships.

Speaking of internships, I've done two. To me, the key takeaways from them were not subject-matter expertise and domain knowledge, but the more intangible aspects. I learned to trust myself more, as I consistently produced work of such quality that I ultimately got a full-time job offer from my second internship firm. I have struggled with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt all my life, wondering if I will ever be "good enough", so this was a balm to my soul.

Of course, I cannot forget the relationships I formed along the way. I was so lucky to have been surrounded by colleagues who were welcoming and accommodating. They readily took me into the fold and treated me as one of their own. Even though I'm no longer working at my first internship firm, I'm still in contact with some of the colleagues I grew closer to through social media and instant messaging.

And outside of internships, how can I forget the friends that fate so kindly sent my way? Three deserve a special mention (initials are used for privacy and I have purposely written very vague details to remove potentially identifying information):

SOF, whom I randomly messaged one day because I was obsessed with a certain adorable mascot and he was a manager at the organisation the mascot represents. He turned out to be a really cool guy with quite a similar personality to me (along with matching fierce faces which don't smile easily), so we are now good friends.

LS, whose job it was to take care of me at one of the educational institutions I attended. Instead of treating me as just another case on her files, she bothered to fight through my tough exterior (didn't I mention I have a fierce face?) and get to know the awesome person trapped inside. She hasn't fled from me yet, so I guess she decided I'm not that bad.

(I only met the third friend this year, so I will talk about her in the next section.)

And that's the thing. People who do manage to break through my defences often find that I'm a pretty okay guy. It's like the old saying: "She's a bitch until you actually get to know her."

How did I become a bitch? Think of it this way. When you do a lot of manual work with your hands, you accumulate superficial damage on your skin which results in the formation of calluses, right? The same thing happens with emotions.

In my case, I have been fighting a battle that has lasted for 23 years and counting. Every day is a struggle as my banged-up body fights to sustain the increasing demands of a perfectly healthy and active mind which wants to do anything and everything. And as they say, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

The public only sees the "idealised" version of me through the media. They think I'm a superman who has overcome my disease and achieved amazing feats. But I haven't. As a child, I lost countless hours of sleep just lying in bed ruminating about my life, wondering "why me?", thinking of the possibilities in life that could have been, and despairing about everything I would lose out on. But those thoughts and feelings would have done me no good at all. They would have turned me into an emotional wreck that couldn't function. So I learned to shut them away in the deepest, darkest corner of my heart. And there they have mostly remained, save for the occasional incident where some of them escape and I become moody for a while until the miscreant is locked up again by the passage of time. Time does heal wounds, after all.

But bottling up my fears and sadness came at a price. I became extremely guarded against anything that might cause me distress, because I wanted to avoid triggering another wave of negativity and setting my demons free again. There was only one problem: if you think about it, "anything that might cause me distress" basically encompasses life itself. In life, shit happens. And so I expended so much energy fretting and worrying and being anxious about this, that, and the other, that I sapped my own soul and became a neurotic empty husk of a human being. This state of affairs persists until the present day. Psychologists would say I have a flattened affect: my eyes are dull and lifeless, and my face fails to convey the full range of human emotions.

So that's the story of how I became a bitch.

How, then, is it possible that there are people, whom I call my friends, who have discovered another version of me? Well, first they had to get past my flattened affect which, admittedly, is very off-putting. Communicating via messaging apps has been a godsend in this regard because they don't have to see my face. Once they had done that, they then had to convince me that it was safe to let them get close to me. The true me, the one who has spent 23 years cowering in the inner sanctum of my mind, trying to avoid getting eaten by the demons who have made it their mission to destroy him once and for all.

That's the version of me who is really nice. He's great fun, has a sense of humour, is kind, and cares a lot for the few people who get through to him. But he does all that to mask his own problems, as well as seek vicarious happiness in others and do his bit to save others from going through the same pain as him, as much as he can. He's very selective though, because he doesn't have all the time in the world to be nice to all and sundry. He does need to remain alert against those demons, you know.

Would I change the way I am? Honestly, no. I find that my bitchiness is a great filter that keeps out the riff-raff whose continued presence in my life would serve no purpose other than to weigh me down and piss me off. The people who truly matter will self-select by persevering through the facade of bitchiness. In this way, I don't have to spend time and energy looking for friends. The ones who are worth having will come to me. I make a clear distinction between acquaintances and friends and don't use the word "friend" willy-nilly. The people who get the label of "friend" have earned their stripes. I don't need or want a ton of friends. That would be extremely tiring. I'm far happier with a tiny handful of very close ones.

And that is how I try to keep my spirit healthy. At least some part of me is holding together, albeit barely.

Year in review: 2020

How can I talk about this year without mentioning the Covid-19 pandemic? I can't, so as tired as the topic has become, I won't attempt to skirt around it.

Honestly, as the world was bitching and moaning about how distressing lockdowns were to people's emotions, I was having the time of my fucking life. Yes, all things considered, I've had quite the opposite experience of 2020 than most people. It's been a good year, and I would consider it one of the most standout high points in my life.

These are three momentous occurrences that 2020 was responsible for.

I got a gastrostomy

It was in 2018 that I noticed I had started losing strength in my throat muscles which controlled the swallowing reflex. I wrote about it here. You will see that back then, I was vehemently against the idea of being tube-fed. How perspectives change in two years.

After struggling through my meals throughout the remainder of 2018 and the entirety of 2019, I thought: "Screw it. I don't want to be spending three hours every single day for the rest of my life slaving over food. There are so many better ways to spend those three hours. Besides, I'm spending so much energy on the very act of eating that the net effect is I'm probably losing calories by burning them faster than I'm taking them in via the food, defeating the whole point of food intake!"

So I asked my doctors for a gastrostomy. It happened in 2020, and you can read about it here.

In the end, the aftermath of the procedure didn't quite go as smoothly as I described in that post. About two months after starting on the tube-feeding regimen, I developed a very wet cough that wouldn't go away. I also suddenly felt really drained of energy all the time. My ability to function in my daily life was affected, as I would have to lie in bed with my ventilator strapped to my face every time I suffered an attack of the wet cough. The lethargy was also slowing down my mind which, as you know, is the only thing on this damned body of mine that actually works properly and allows me to earn money.

I couldn't go on like that! So my doctors came and did a bunch of tests, ruling out infection. Then they more or less ran into a wall and got stumped. None of their gadgets could identify a biological reason for my symptoms. But there had to be one!

My mother remembered that when I was a child, I would get wet coughs whenever she gave me too much milk. And the formula feed I was on, Ensure Plus, was dairy-based. It was possible that I was reacting badly to it, since I was taking in 800ml of it every day.

The medical professionals were okay with my parents doing an experiment to test this hypothesis. So I began taking a reduced 600ml volume of Ensure Plus. My symptoms improved slightly but didn't totally go away. A further cutback to 400ml did the trick. After a few days on the half-diet, I felt like I was back to my old self again.

One day, the dietitian found out about a product called Isomil 3 and drew my father's attention to it. It's a dairy-free, soy-based formula for babies. I went on it for a few weeks and found that I was energetic and my lungs remained clear.

Throughout this time, my weight was fluctuating wildly. From an initial 16kg before the tube insertion, it shot up under the 800ml Ensure Plus regimen, stabilised under the 600ml one, started coming down under the 400ml one, then crashed further after the switch to Isomil. Because one of the goals that my father and the dietitian have is to keep my weight at around 20kg, they were not pleased when my weight tumbled to about 19kg. So we are still in the midst of trying to find a regimen that works optimally. But at least now we know that we need to be careful with the amount of dairy we include.

The benefits I mentioned in that post, though, endure. I don't have to fight against my failing body to eat dinner every night, so I have so much more time and energy to do other things.

Which brings me to my next momentous occurrence...

RuneScape

I know I've talked about this ad nauseam recently, especially since I've been playing it a lot during my newly freed-up evenings. But instead of waxing lyrical about the game, I'll talk about something else this time.

The wonderful thing about multiplayer role-playing games like RuneScape is the social aspect. I don't have the strength to go out and mingle with people in real life, and anyway, going anywhere is fraught with logistical complexities such as having to be transported to the destination safely and chaperoned around by an experienced caregiver, which in the vast majority of cases is my father.

So it's pretty hard for me to maintain social contact with other humans. Do I get lonely? Yeah for sure, all the time in fact, especially as I get older and see my contemporaries meet their life partners and settle down. That's something I'll never have, and although I like to look on the bright side and think about how much of my money is freed up by not having to worry about costs like a house, a car, and my children's education, allowing me to buy more nice things for myself and my loved ones in the here and now, I do sometimes wonder what would have been. I have the feeling I would've been an awesome dad, but I guess I'll never know.

We RuneScapers like to say that RuneScape is not a dating site. But what it offers me is an avenue to meet new people and make new friends. Remember the third friend I mentioned in the previous section? We met through RuneScape. Although we live very different lives on opposite sides of the planet, our values, opinions, and personalities align so closely it's actually uncanny. She's like a younger, hardier, more street-smart, and less cowardly version of me, or the baby sister I could never have.

It's also really cool finally having a friend who is around my age and not several decades older. I mean, I love my other friends like SOF and LS to bits, but I sometimes wonder at my inability to form close ties with anyone younger. Well, I don't have to wonder anymore. We get along so well, and because just like me, she is way more intelligent and keen to learn than the vast majority of our peers, we can have such deep and meaningful discussions about wide-ranging topics from culture to entertainment to current affairs. I get so exhausted making mindless small talk with airheaded people so chatting with her is extremely refreshing because she's not averse to diving into the heavy stuff. She's even willing to play Agony Aunt with me when I go all mushy and emotional, because she believes in confronting your emotions and not hiding them away. That's reflected in the music we like, which is the older type that contains meaning rather than that candy-pop Korean drivel that's so "in" these days. Have a listen to this song by a band she introduced me to which I developed a liking for.

I'm truly in awe at how fortunate I am that fate so kindly sent this very special person into my path this year. (Note: Although I have written about this friend in such glowing terms, let me make it abundantly clear that my relationship with her is strictly "BFF" in nature. This is not an Avril Lavigne song.)

I graduated and did quite well

The third momentous occurrence was when I received official confirmation that I had passed my final semester and was to be conferred my degree from the National University of Singapore, the best university in Asia and training ground of Singapore's sex offenders.

I finished with a score of 4.85 out of 5, and my degree is classed as an Honours with Highest Distinction. That was a bit of a Covid-induced fluke, to be honest. As I explained in my Facebook post announcing this happy news:

The Covid-19 pandemic gave me a better degree than I would otherwise have gotten.

My cumulative average point (CAP) was well on track to qualifying me for an Honours with Highest Distinction. But to get Honours with Highest Distinction in regular times, there was an additional hurdle: a thesis had to be written. If a student got a CAP of more than 4.5 but did not write a thesis, they would only get an Honours with Distinction, which is the class below Honours with Highest Distinction.

Such was my distaste for research, however, that I was willing to accept the lower class of Honours in return for not having to suffer through the process of writing a thesis. This was not an emotionally driven decision; I had consulted my superiors at my internship firm and they said it really did not matter career-wise whether I got the highest class of Honours or the one just below.

It turned out that in the end, this tough choice to sacrifice the glory of an Honours with Highest Distinction became moot. The pandemic and the accompanying social distancing measures caused students to face great difficulties when conducting their research. Recognising this, the Faculty waived the thesis requirement for obtaining the Honours with Highest Distinction class. Students only needed to meet the CAP requirement of at least 4.5.

So that is how I lucked into getting my Honours with Highest Distinction. But as a wise man once said: "Luck is when being prepared meets opportunity". My consistent performance through the seven semesters enabled me to maintain a very high CAP that allowed me to capitalise on the favourable circumstances when they presented themselves.

And for that, I make no apologies for saying that I am immensely pleased with myself.

So yeah, now I have a top-class degree from a very reputable university to wave around when I get into stupid fights with strangers on social media. Suck it!

I can't think of a better way to use this hallowed piece of parchment.

The ramble ends here

Okay, this post became way longer than I intended. Mad respect to you if you made it to this point. You must be really interested in the nitty-gritty of my humdrum existence. I appreciate that a lot. It's rare that anyone cares so much about my banal stories.

You might also have noticed that it is now 2021. My bad! Between laziness, procrastination, distractions, real-life goings-on, and writer's block, the process of writing this post dragged on over weeks instead of the few days I had originally anticipated.

Anyway, if you are one of the elite few who have read this whole post to the end, congratulations and thank you once again for the support! You can finally be free now to go do better things with your time.

Module reviews for AY20/21 Semester 1: The end is here

 After studying for 16-and-a-half years, I have finally got it.

The piece of paper that marks the end of the Singapore education journey: the degree.

My last semester ran from August to November 2020 and was held completely online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Keep that fact in mind as you read these module reviews.

NM4223: New Media and Organisations

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar

Assessment:

Individual thought leadership assignment, where you will write three articles on LinkedIn about empirical research related to the module and a reflection essay based on your experience doing this assignment = 30%

Group webinar presentation, where your group will deliver a webinar on a topic related to the module with interactive elements to engage the audience = 30%

Open-book midterm test on LumiNUS, consisting of four open-ended questions = 20%

Participation = 20%

Lecturer: Dr Suwichit (Sean) Chaidaroon - 11/10

By far the most student-centric, kind, and encouraging lecturer I had this semester, Dr Sean has a very nurturing character that makes him an excellent educator. He was always generous with his words of affirmation towards students' work, and gentle with his criticisms. I was also mightily impressed with the thought process behind how he designed the assessments for the module. He explained that he wanted the assessments to have practical value to us as we started on our career journey. For example, the individual thought leadership assignment was intended to boost our profile on LinkedIn, the platform which professionals like us use to network and improve their career prospects. The group webinar presentation was intended to give us hands-on experience in delivering webinars in the role of subject-matter experts, which we might eventually do as part of our jobs in the communications industry. Furthermore, he also wanted to give students with various strengths the chance to showcase their skills: the individual thought leadership assignment was where those who are good at writing could excel, while the group webinar presentation was where those who are good at speaking could shine. I felt this showed that Dr Sean really cares about designing his module in a way that all students would benefit from it, which earns him bonus marks and hence this high score.

Module: 9/10

The content of the module is very relevant to real life, which is always appreciated. Essentially, it deals with a wide range of issues regarding the use of technology in the corporate world. For example, it examines how technology can be used for nefarious deeds such as cyberbullying among employees, the pros and cons of telework, and even dealing with workplace romances. One area that could be improved is tying the weekly themes together into a coherent narrative. Currently, it seems like the topics that are discussed week-by-week are rather disparate and do not really fit into a sort of big picture framework. If they could be organised in such a fashion, it would be ideal. But this is just a suggestion and by no means a deal-breaker. I highly recommend this module to anyone who will eventually work in a corporate environment, which is basically all of us.

NM4228: Crisis Communication

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar

Assessment:

Concept assignments, which are relatively short tasks, with two done individually and one done as a group = 40%

Group project, which involves constructing a full crisis communication plan = 30%

Participation = 30%

Lecturer: Ms Bhavani Krishnasamy - 7/10

Ms Bhavani was teaching for the first time, so naturally it did not go as smoothly as it would have with a more experienced lecturer. She would sometimes change her mind about assignments and seemed to be making them up as she went along, and even wanted to allow up to ten students to do the group project together before eventually settling on a maximum of six. I also felt that she missed out on capitalising upon one of the key strengths of a practitioner-educator (as opposed to the usual academic researchers who teach most university modules), which is using their industry experience to illustrate their lessons and bring them to life through anecdotes. Perhaps she thought that university modules are supposed to conform to the standard "do your readings and discuss them" formula, but this is not the case, as other practitioner-educators like Mr Lim Wei Yi, Dr Tan Ee Lyn, and Mr Adrian Heng (more on him below) have shown.

Module: 7/10

The module turned out to be so much more theoretical than I expected. I had heard that it was a very industry-oriented, real-world module under the previous lecturer Mr Adrian Heng, which I had believed because I had taken another one of his modules and found that this was indeed the case. Unfortunately, he is no longer with the department. The reworked version of the module is now full of conceptual stuff but lacking in the nitty-gritty of how to go about communicating during a crisis. For example, I remember that Mr Heng dedicated a lecture during his other module that I took, which was actually about social media management, to crisis communications and he gave us very detailed information such as who should comprise the crisis communications team and the roles that each person should play, how to set up a media centre (and a pro tip: it should be as far away from the holding room for family and friends of victims as possible, because it is a bad idea to let the press take lots of photographs of grieving people or interview them as they will be emotionally unstable and may say some very damaging things against your company), and how to organise a press conference. I would have liked more of these practical pointers in this module instead of just more theories. I get more than my fill of those from other modules already.

NM4230: Communication for Social Change

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar

Assessment:

Individual paper, in which you reflect on your learning points from the module = 20%

Group project, in which your group will come up with a solution to a social issue = 55%: 20% strategic report, 15% tactic report, 10% presentation, 10% peer review

Leading group discussions, in which your group will deliver a presentation on the lecture topic for the week and start a discussion with the rest of the class = 10%

Participation and attendance = 15%

Lecturer: Dr Asha Rathina Pandi - 8/10

Dr Pandi is... well, enthusiastic to a fault. She shouts shrilly and excitedly into the microphone every single lesson. Her passion for the subject is never in question. But sometimes this passion causes her to ramble too much about one topic or veer off on a tangent, which is not an ideal thing to do in any lesson but especially a fully online one where attention is a precious commodity. To her credit though, her interactions with students were always nurturing and jovial, never toxic or negative. And she followed up regularly on the progress of the group projects to keep everyone on track, an effort which is much appreciated.

Module: 7/10

Too much "what" and not enough "how". That is the way I would describe the weakness of this module. I took away a lot of broad concepts like "participatory approach" and fancy terms like "epistemological", but I thought that at times, these simply served to overcomplicate matters. For example, "participatory approach" is actually a simple idea: when we want to help a certain group of people, we should consult them and work with them when coming up with interventions, rather than imposing on them a solution that we think is best. The module has a lot of big notions like this, but is fairly light on specific details. How do we go about working with target populations to design effective solutions to help meet their needs? In other words, the module suffers from the problem of leaving more questions than it answers. Which is fine if you like this sort of philosophical and reflective style, I suppose, but it is not something I personally enjoy.

NM4240 : Risk Perception and Communication

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar

Assessment:

2 x individual paper, the first evaluating a health risk from a scientific perspective and the second evaluating how the risk is portrayed in the media = 2 x 20% = 40%

Individual leading discussion, in which you are assigned a research paper to read and evaluate for its strengths and weaknesses = 10%

Group project, in which your group will analyse existing risk communication efforts around a topic of your choice and propose your own to address any shortcomings you identified = 30%

Participation and attendance = 20%

Lecturer: Dr Hong Soo Jung - 9/10

Dr Hong is very patient and encouraging, rarely having negative things to say to students. I like this because sometimes I feel like educators make use of their positions of power over students to bully students and make their lives difficult for no other reason than sadistic pleasure, so I always look favourably on educators who treat their students nicely instead. Dr Hong also does a fairly decent job of breaking down a dry, theoretical subject into nuggets that students are better able to process. But I did feel that at times, she would get carried away expounding at great length about some topic or other, and I would get lost and subsequently tune out. Keeping her lecture delivery concise and to-the-point would help greatly in this regard.

Module: 8/10

To be honest, this module is rather heavy-going as it is packed with plenty of models and theories, all attempting to explain how people view the concept of risk. If, like me, theories are not quite your cup of tea, you will struggle to keep your attention focused during lectures. But I gave this module more marks because the assessments are well-designed. The individual papers are scaffolded nicely, with plenty of guiding questions given to help you come up with content to write. The second paper also builds upon the first so you do not have to start it from scratch. Similarly, the group project consists of the abstract stage, the literature review stage, and the final report stage, with submissions required at each stage. This allows the lecturer to keep tabs on your progress and provide feedback to ensure you are on the right track. All this means that even if you have a hard time following the finer details of the lessons, you will probably still be able to survive the assessments.

This is the last set of module reviews I will ever write! I never thought I would be saying that so soon but the years have just whizzed by so fast. I started doing these reviews when I started university in 2017 because I noticed it was a common practice among Singaporean university students who had blogs so I simply carried on the tradition. But I know that over the years, my reviews have helped many of my juniors because some have sent me messages to thank me for writing them. This was very encouraging so I was motivated to continue pushing these out after every semester.

Now my job is done and it is time for the next generation to take over. So if you are a junior and you are reading this, do write your own module reviews for future batches of students to benefit from!

And if you have been reading and enjoying my academics-related blog content through the years, thank you for your support! Such content was a major focus of this blog and now that I am no longer a student, I am not sure what the future of this blog is going to be. I will still post here every now and then, but it will probably have a slightly greater emphasis on my favourite computer game, RuneScape. But there will also be posts on rather whimsical and disparate topics, depending on what catches my fancy at a particular time. So I hope you will continue to find things you enjoy here!

The finish line: My last semester is here (AY2020/21 Semester 1)

This is it. After 16 years of studying, the endgame is in sight. The piece of paper I have been working towards my entire life is finally within reach.

I am half a year away from graduating with my degree.

And it could potentially be a higher class of degree than expected, thanks to the coronavirus. The requirement of an Honours Thesis has been waived for the award of Honours with Highest Distinction for this year, because many students who were writing their theses were encountering difficulties in gathering their research data due to social distancing measures.

Given that my cumulative average point is well within the range for Honours with Highest Distinction, I could end up benefitting from this waiver. Previously, I would not have been able to get an Honours with Highest Distinction because an Honours Thesis was mandatory. I would have had to settle for Honours with Distinction.

Now, as long as I don't start picking up C's and D's all of a sudden, I will be able to get Honours with Highest Distinction after all.

That's cool!

So what are the modules standing between me and my coveted piece of paper?

Note: All modules are worth 5MCs, graded with standard letter grades, and delivered through weekly three-hour seminars, held through Zoom this semester due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Regular students can acquire them on the ModReg system, with priority given to CNM majors in SOC4. I was preallocated my modules by the Dean's Office due to my status as a disabled student.

NM4223: New Media and Organizations

This module seems pretty cool because it's about working in corporations and how new media technologies have an impact on such companies. It appears to blend in some HR aspects as well, such as emotions and relationships at the workplace. Given that I'll be working in a large company when I graduate, and having interned in that company for quite a long time last year, I think this module will be interesting because it will contain useful observations and insights into everyday life at such workplaces.

NM4228: Crisis Communication

The lecturer for this module is Ms Bhavani Krishnasamy, one of the most famous communications practitioners in Singapore. She was involved in many of the most momentous occasions in Singapore's history like the terrorist takeover of flight SQ117, the mysterious crashing of SilkAir flight MI185, and the SARS and H1N1 pandemics. I also found this article from The Guardian which mentions her and the fact that her name made it from the little red dot all the way to the United Kingdom says it all. It's indeed very exciting to have the opportunity to hear from someone at the top of the field!

NM4230: Communication for Social Change

Pushing for change is an important human activity, in my opinion. Whether it's to overhaul an oppressive political system or get fair treatment for a group of underprivileged people, activism and lobbying are crucial in bringing about desirable changes to the world we live in. And having a concerted communication effort behind a social change campaign can be the difference between success and failure, since social change can only happen with enough public support. This module will draw on many examples of social change communications from various parts of the world to show how tools like social media and blogs can be used for activism.

NM4240: Risk Perception and Communication

So many people are out and about, heedless of the dangers posed by the coronavirus that is still lurking around. In other words, they are taking risks with their health and safety. When I was studying psychology in polytechnic, I was exposed to the works of Gerd Gigerenzer and enjoyed learning about his thoughts on how we perceive risk. I look forward to exploring this topic in greater depth because I believe we can easily see its effects in our lives, especially with the ongoing pandemic.

I'm happy to be wrapping up the educational phase of my life because it's getting a little stale and I want to go on to do other things already. There's a whole new world of experiences waiting for me out there!

 

That's all for now. Look out for my last set of module reviews ever  (!), out in January 2021.

 

Until then, stay at home as much as possible and wear a mask at all times when you're out of the house!

Module reviews for AY19/20 Semester 2: I hope I still remember how to do this...

It has literally been a year since my last module review on this blog, barring the internship review I published in January, which was for only one special module.

But I'm back in school now, to finish my Honours degree! Having had such a good time at my internship worksite (you can read all about it at the link above), I was a little sad at the resumption of life as a student, mainly because I feared for my bank balance without the steady stream of income I had gotten used to over the preceding few months.

It's hard to justify buying a jumbo pack of trash bags that your family has totally no use for (I legit did this during my internship because Gobbler visited GIC and sold the trash bags dirt cheap) when your account has very few digits in its total.

Anyway, something happened just before the semester started that sweetened the deal and made me happier to return to the academic life. I covered it here, but in short, a research methods module which was previously a graduation requirement was made optional for those who don't write a thesis. That's great for me, because I hate research and wasn't going to write a thesis.

So I could take modules that were more interesting and appealing to me. Let's review what they were and how they turned out.

NM4238: Software Studies

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, come prepared to discuss weekly assigned readings

Assessment:

One midterm essay and one final essay of roughly 3000 words each, broad topic will be defined but students are free to write anything within those boundaries = 55%
Weekly blog entries reflecting on the assigned readings + class participation = 45%

Lecturer: Associate Professor Lonce Wyse - 6/10

I think A/P Wyse knows his stuff. His fields of expertise are neural nets and artificial intelligence-generated art, and he can talk at length about them. He clearly loves them very much, which is kinda cute to be honest. Unfortunately, he's a real scatterbrain. I'm not sure if he even had a plan for the semester or was just making stuff up week by week. The assignments were quite free-and-easy, which was cool, but what was not cool was that the entire module felt so free-and-easy that it lacked structure and was just chaotic. His classroom management also left a lot to be desired. He aims for an open discussion-style of teaching, but instead lessons are filled with awkward pauses. Given that he's been in NUS like forever, he should know that we're not the most talkative bunch. We are far from those American chatterboxes you see on shows like High School Musical. It's up to our lecturers to manage our reticence and devise clever schemes to engage with us. That's why they're paid the big bucks. But he didn't do this.

Module: 6/10

I absolutely hated the first half of the module. It was full of philosophical mumbo-jumbo about software being a metaphor for the police and justice system, and programmers as being sexually deviant wizards (yes, the Harry Potter kind) who have fetishes for code instead of genitalia. I kid you not. Hand on heart, that's what I took away from the first few weeks of the semester, though I'll admit this is probably a big misunderstanding. The second half of the semester was much better, earning some marks from me and rescuing the module from a failing score. It was about ethical issues surrounding artificial intelligence as well as technological arts. At least those made sense to me. I mean, I can imagine why it's bad to let the government know your every movement through tracking your phone, and I can see how an artwork created by a machine learning algorithm is different from one that was created by a human.

NM4239: Digital Propaganda and Public Opinion

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, come prepared to discuss weekly assigned readings

Assessment:

Midterm take-home essay exam, questions are released on a specified date and students are given two days to submit a response = 20%
Propaganda in my life, individual assignment where you reflect on where you personally encounter propaganda, what kinds of propaganda you encounter, and how propaganda affects you = 15%
Leading discussion, pairs of students are assigned one of that week's readings to summarise and lead the class to discuss and engage with critically = 15%
Group project, a qualitative study using the in-depth interview method on how people perceive propaganda = 35%
Class attendance and participation = 15%

Lecturer: Assistant Professor Taberez Neyazi - 7/10

Dr Taberez could deliver his lessons smoothly and with little difficulty, though at times he would get a little too excited over what is clearly his pet topic and ramble on incoherently for longer than the average undergraduate's attention span at 9 o'clock in the morning. Re-read that sentence to get a feel of what I mean. His classroom management can also be improved. Specifically, if he would like students to have a lively discussion, he needs to figure out how to spark such a discussion into life beyond just begging people to say something or threatening to deduct participation marks. Otherwise there's just a lot of silence and shifty sidelong glances, followed by a reluctant throwaway point raised by one of the less apathetic members of the class.

Module: 8/10

The words "despair" and "hopeless" are what I would use to describe my feelings after learning about propaganda from this module. Propaganda is everywhere. It's an unstoppable force, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Basically, it's not a problem that can be fixed. The reason we study it is so that we, as individuals, can try to inoculate ourselves against it as best we can so that we don't end up being that Boomer who forwards "drink disinfectant to cure coronavirus" to 200 people on WhatsApp. I dunno if that's the effect we're supposed to experience after learning about propaganda, and somehow I don't think it is, but that's what it did for me, making my innards roil with confusion and conflict. But don't misunderstand: this module is certainly enlightening as it will open your eyes to the many forms propaganda can take, both online and offline. And that's certainly knowledge worth arming yourself with, especially in this terribly complex world we find ourselves in.

NM4247: Creative Writing in the Marketplace

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, broken down into about 1 hour of lecture and 2 hours of hands-on writing work and peer critique

Assessment:

Two micro-essays of around 500 words each, telling a personal story about a topic that will be given = 5% per micro-essay = 10%
Narrative arcs assignment, watch some videos and break the stories down into their essential components = 5%
Personal essay, telling a personal story of about 1000 words on any topic you want = 5% for a pitch, to be written like an email to an editor in which you try to convince them to publish your story + 20% for the story proper + 5% for three proposed Instagram posts telling the story in more social media-friendly form = 30%
Group project, write a script for a video advertisement = 30%
Class attendance and participation = 25%

Lecturer: Ms Jinny Koh - 8/10

As the published author of a full-length novel, Ms Koh has the right to teach this creative writing class. It's clear that she knows the nuts and bolts of a good story, and she was fairly capable of imparting that knowledge to us students, especially given that teaching isn't her real job and she was taking the class as a side gig. I felt she took the "workshopping" idea, where students were supposed to work on writing tasks in class and then comment on one another's products, a little too seriously at times. I much prefer the style where the instructor themself is the one to walk around the room and give personalised feedback to each individual student as they work on the writing tasks independently, as my NM2220 instructor did. Writing is a solo endeavour and doesn't quite lend itself to group activities, at least in my opinion.

Module: 8/10

I can see the value in having this module. Storytelling is an important part of the public relations toolbox. Indeed, it can be said that the entire act of public relations is telling a story. Certainly, a good story can be a powerful way to bring across a point. Just think of public awareness campaigns that have stuck with you: chances are, you remember them because they told you a story that resonated with you. This module succeeded in conveying the key lessons we need to know about storytelling, such as the structure of a narrative. We also had the chance to apply what we had learned through the video script assignment, which had us write a script for an advertisement promoting a brand or cause. This is a pretty good simulation of what storytelling will be used for in a real company. But a large chunk of time was spent on the personal essay assignment, which essentially got us to write a short story about an incident from our life. The relevance of this portion of the module to the industry wasn't clear enough.

NM4881A: Topics in Media Studies: Social Media

MCs: 5 - priority for CNM Honours students, excess capacity may be granted to Year 3 CNM majors

Delivery:

Weekly 3-hour seminar, read weekly readings for some discussion but lecturer also includes other ad-hoc activities too

Assessment:

Two in-class quizzes = 10% + 15% = 25%
Forum posting, make 3 original posts (students will sign up for the weeks they will post on to avoid bunching) and 2 replies on the LumiNUS discussion forum based on the assigned readings = 20%
Leading discussion, each student group will choose two research articles outside the assigned readings to present and lead a class discussion on = 20%
Social media audit, each student group will pick an organisation to conduct a social media audit on and prepare a slide deck as if to present their findings to the organisation itself = 15%
Final paper and presentation, each student group will write a paper and give a presentation on any topic of their choice that is related to social media = 20%

Lecturer: Dr Kokil Jaidka - 9/10

Dr Jaidka is a newly minted academic. This was the first class she had ever taught as a full-time faculty member. I believe in rewarding effort and attitude, which is why she has received such high marks from me. Her teaching was not perfect. For one, she was disorganised. Assessment components were changing throughout the semester, and even during her weekly lessons, there were times when she seemed to lose her train of thought or not have a clear idea of what she wanted to do or say. But her heart is in the right place, as the cliché goes. Her communication with students was always open and honest. Indeed, one of the reasons why assessment components were changed frequently was because she was responding to student feedback in real time. I think when she was planning the module, she got carried away and went overboard with the amount of work she wanted to assign because she lacked the experience to have a sense of what load students can handle. But full credit to her for remedying the situation mid-course by lightening some of the requirements and being flexible with deadlines. She was also caring towards all her students. When the coronavirus situation started to turn threatening, she promptly and proactively took her lessons online to be delivered through Zoom, weeks before the university mandated it. Decisiveness like this is what will win the war against the pandemic. Her enthusiasm is also admirable and a pleasant change from her jaded senior colleagues. I enjoyed her random emails which showcased a sense of humour that I had previously thought only I possessed.

Module: 8/10

Given how deeply embedded into our everyday life social media is, it's useful to know some of the concepts taught in this module. For example, one of my LinkedIn connections keeps talking about this thing called the "strength of weak ties" when explaining why he accepts connection requests quite freely, but I had no idea what the "strength of weak ties" was until I took this module. Sociologist Mark Granovetter coined the theory, which encapsulates the idea that when you have many weak ties, you can receive more valuable information that is not available to those in your immediate network of close relations. In other words, weak ties act like bridges between ourselves and the outside world. You can think of a weak tie as an acquaintance or an online "friend" you've never met in real life, and a strong tie as someone you know personally. Social media is essentially a giant network connecting users together. Studying the nature of these connections forms the bulk of what social media studies is all about. This isn't a purely academic exercise: useful insights do emerge. For example, research suggests that the tactic of using influencers in marketing is not optimal. It is very rare to see any one individual influence many other people, and in fact 70% of conversations are generated by non-influential users. Many of our decisions are made when influenced by the people we are emotionally close to. So marketing should move away from using influencers, and try to tap on people's personal connections instead. As you can see, there are little nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout this module. In-class hands-on exercises also have students play with tools such as sentiment analysis algorithms and keyword monitoring programmes. These are practical skills which communications practitioners should probably have some experience with, especially those who are working in social media marketing jobs in the future. Why didn't this module get more marks from me? I felt there were too many assessment components. Removing one and redistributing its weightage among the others would restore balance. I would suggest scrapping the final group paper and presentation, then allocating 5% more to the social media audit to make it worth 20%, 10% more to the leading discussion component to bring it up to 30%, and 5% more to the first quiz to make both equivalent to 15% for a total of 30%.

This semester hasn't been a highlight of my university life, but it wasn't bad either. Amid the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, I'd say that all things considered, this semester went as decently as could reasonably be expected: just average, not outstanding for the right or wrong reasons. In the end, I utilised 5 out of the 10 modular credits of the special Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory allowance given by the university to cushion students against the psychological impact of the pandemic, by erasing the A- grade I got for NM4881A. As all my other module grades for the semester were either A's or A+'s, my cumulative average point inched up by 0.02 and now sits at 4.85, well above my graduation target of 4.00 upon 5 for an Honours with Distinction.

And there goes my second-last set of module reviews ever! Next semester will be my final one before I venture into the working world for good, which means the next set of module reviews, which should be up on this blog in the new year, will also be the last of their kind.

Doing the Honours: Returning to school to start my Honours Year in AY2019/20 Semester 2

I'm into my final year of formal education now. On 13 January 2020, I will begin my second-last semester as an NUS FASS student.

My ex-boss, who is also my boss-to-be come 2021 when I join the sovereign wealth fund GIC after graduation, has this advice for picking modules: learn how the world works.

Don't go learn how to write. Go learn about the world, do interesting things, read hard subjects, and then communicate about the world through your writing. Stop wasting time on Journalism School and Communications School, but if you're already knee-deep in it, then learn all the other hard and weird stuff on the side that will animate your writing.

~ Jason Leow, former journalist at The Straits Times and current managing director of communications at GIC and chairman of the Speak Good English Movement. For the record, he did not study journalism at university. He majored in literature at NUS.

So with this in mind, I set about picking modules for the new semester that are more conceptual and worldly rather than vocational and specific. At the same time, I don't like modules that deal with topics that are too abstract. I like to be able to see the relevance of what I am learning in class to reality. I think I managed to strike a good balance with this selection of modules.

Note: All modules are worth 5MCs, graded with standard letter grades, and delivered through weekly three-hour seminars. Regular students can acquire them on the ModReg system, with priority given to CNM majors in SOC4. I was preallocated my modules by the Dean's Office due to my status as a disabled student.

NM4239: Digital Propaganda and Public Opinion
This is one of the "conceptual and worldly" modules. Others were available too, such as one about racial representation in the media and another about sex in the media. But those are not really interesting to me, being confined to niche activists' areas of concern. This module is more interesting because it deals with social and political affairs, which are current, particularly with the General Election around the corner, and affect all of us. Informed citizens should have some understanding of how external parties, especially in this day and age of social media, influence our decisions on hot-button issues and maybe even change our minds without us knowing.

NM4247: Creative Writing in the Marketplace
According to the description on LumiNUS, this module teaches students "the importance of narratives and the techniques of crafting them through personal essays" as well as how to "apply what they have learnt to a narrative video script for a brand or cause". In other words, it's about storytelling, not for the sake of spinning fairytales but for strategic brand-building. This is my indulgence as it is not quite the "conceptual and worldly" module that I should be taking if I follow Jason's advice strictly, but I chose it because I think I will like it and have fun with it.

NM4881A: Topics in Media Studies: Social Media
Another "conceptual and worldly" module I picked for this semester is what I would call the "dark" (or Darth, if you're a Star Wars fan) NM2203. Where NM2203 is all about how you can use social media effectively to build your brand, NM4881A is stuffed with weighty, and at times depressing, observations about how social media impacts, and is in turn impacted by, us as individuals and, on a larger scale, the world around us. In other words, it is about the effects of social media on people and society. With social media being part of our everyday lives, I can see why this knowledge is important and relevant.

NM4238: Software Studies
This is a "conceptual and worldly" module from the realm of computational social science. Rather than looking at software from a technological perspective, such as analysing how a programme or application is coded, it examines the impact of technological developments and computerisation, such as remote working, Bitcoin, and the increasingly powerful devices we carry in our pockets, on people and society through the lens of the humanities and social sciences. Ultimately, human beings are the consumers and end-users of technology, so it is vital to be aware of the possible implications of such technology on human health, happiness, and relationships.

My CAP stands at 4.82. The highest Honours class I can obtain is Distinction (formerly known as Second Upper Class), because I decided against writing a thesis and as a result am barred from obtaining Highest Distinction (formerly known as First Class). It was a trade-off I made willingly because I abhor research and couldn't fathom spending a year of my short life slaving away over some inconsequential manuscript whose only destiny is to lie in a corner somewhere collecting dust. What sweetened the deal was the recent announcement that effective from my cohort (Cohort 2017) onwards, NM4102: Advanced Communications & New Media Research is no longer a graduation requirement for all CNM Honours students. It is now compulsory only for those writing an Honours thesis or, restated in formal terms, NM4102 is a pre- and co-requisite for NM4401 Honours Thesis. What that means for me is that I can escape from doing research completely and still get my Honours! Several senior colleagues at my internship worksite assured me that there's not much difference to employers between a Highest Distinction and a Distinction, so I went ahead and threw out both NM4401 and NM4102 from my considerations.

As I was on internship for the past half-year, I haven't had to do academic work for quite a while now. Strangely, I kind of miss it because it has been a constant feature in my life and I am the type of person who prefers the familiar. I look forward to the new semester and all the interesting modules I'll be taking with great excitement!